This section contains excerpts from well-known Catholic sources
on the history of the Douay-Rheims
Bible.

The Holy Bible text in this software has been converted
from the 1899 edition of the John Murphy Company, Baltimore, Maryland.

Although "Challoner Revision" may be the most accurate title for this
version of the Holy Bible (see below), it was called, and continues to be
called, "The Douay-Rheims Version".
This software will be faithful to the 1899 edition and retain the title "Douay-Rheims Version".

The following is an excerpt from the 1914 Edition of The Catholic
Encyclopedia [1]:

The original Douay Version, which is
the foundation on which nearly all English Catholic
versions are still based, owed its existence to the religious
controversies of the sixteenth century. Many Protestant
versions of the Scriptures had been issued and were
used largely by the Reformers for polemical purposes.
The rendering of some of the texts showed evident signs
of controversial bias, and it became of the first importance
for the English Catholics of the day to be furnished
with a translation of their own, on the accuracy of which
they could depend and to which they could appeal in
the course of argument. The work of preparing such
a version was undertaken by the members of the
English College at Douai, in Flanders, founded by William
Allen (afterwards cardinal) in 1568. The chief share
of the translating was borne by Dr. Gregory Martin,
formerly of St. John's College, Oxford. His text was
revised by Thomas Worthington, Richard Bristowe,
John Reynolds, and Allen himself - all of them Oxford
men. A series of notes was added, designed to answer
the theological arguments of the Reformers; these
were prepared by Allen, assisted by Bristowe and
Worthington.

The object of the work was, of course, not limited to
controversial purposes; in the case of the New
Testament, especially, it was meant for pious use among
Catholics. The fact, however, that the primary end
was controversial explains the course adopted by the
translators. In the first place they translated directly,
not from the original Hebrew or Greek, but from the
Latin Vulgate of St. Jerome. This had been declared
authoritative for Catholics by the Council of Trent;
but it was also commonly admitted that the text was
purer than in any manuscripts at that time extant in
the original languages. Then, also, in the translation,
many technical words were retained bodily, such as
pasch, parasceve, azymes, etc. In some instances, also,
where it was found difficult or impossible to find a
suitable English equivalent for a Latin word, the latter
was retained in an anglicized form. Thus in Phil., ii, 8,
we get "He exinanited himself", and in Heb., ix, 28,
"Christ was offered once to exhaust the sins of many".
It was considered that an ordinary reader, finding the
word unintelligible, would pause and inquire its
meaning, and that this was preferable to satisfying him with
an inadequate rendering. In other cases latinisms seem
to have crept in unawares, as in Luke, x, 1, "Our Lord
designed also other seventy-two"; or in Phil., ii, 10,
"In the name of Jesus, every knee bow of the celestials,
terrestrials and infernals". The proper names are
usually (though not always) taken from the Vulgate; but
the word Dominus is rendered throughout Our Lord.
The general result was a version in cumbersome
English, so full of latinisms as to be in places hardly readable,
but withal scholarly and accurate.

In the year 1578, owing to political troubles, the
college was temporarily transferred from Douai
(which was then in the dominions of the King of
Spain) to Reims, and during its sojourn there, in
1582, the New Testament was published, and became
consequently known as the "Rheims Testament". It
contained no episcopal imprimatur, but a
recommendation was appended signed by four divines of the
University of Reims. The Old Testament was
delayed by want of means, until the whole Bible was
eventually published in two quarto volumes, in 1609
and 1610, by which time the college had returned to
Douai, and the recommendation was signed by three
doctors of that university. Thus the New Testament
appeared nearly thirty years before the Anglican
"Authorized Version", and although not officially
mentioned as one of the versions to be consulted, it is
now commonly recognized to have had a large
influence on the King James Version (see Preface to Revised
Version, i, 2; also, Carleton, "Rheims and the English Bible").
The Reims Testament was reprinted twice at Antwerp
- in 1600 and 1621 - and a fourth edition was
issued at Rouen in 1633. Then it was allowed to rest
for over a century before a fifth edition appeared,
with some slight changes, dated 1728, but without any
place of publication stated. It is believed to have
been printed in London and was edited by Dr.
Challoner (afterwards bishop), and Father Blyth, a
Carmelite. The Douay Bible was never after this printed
abroad. A sixth edition of the Reims Testament was
printed at Liverpool in 1788, and a seventh dated
Dublin, 1803, which was the last Catholic edition.
Several Protestant editions have appeared, the best
known being a curious work by Rev. William Fulke,
first published in 1589, with the Reims text and that
of the Bishops' Bible in parallel columns. A
Protestant edition of the Reims Testament was also brought
out by Leavitt of New York, in 1834.

Although the Bibles in use at the present day by the
Catholics of England and Ireland are popularly styled
the Douay Version, they are most improperly so
called; they are founded, with more or less alteration,
on a series of revisions undertaken by Bishop
Challoner in 1749-52. His object was to meet the
practical want felt by the Catholics of his day of a Bible
moderate in size and price, in readable English, and
with notes more suitable to the time. He brought out
three editions of the New Testament, in 1749, 1750,
and 1752 respectively, and one of the Old Testament
in 1750. The changes introduced by him were so
considerable that, according to Cardinal Newman, they
"almost amounted to a new translation". So also,
Cardinal Wiseman wrote, "To call it any longer the
Douay or Rheimish Version is an abuse of terms. It
has been altered and modified until scarcely any verse
remains as it was originally published." In nearly
every case Challoner's changes took the form of
approximating to the Authorized Version, though his
three editions of the New Testament differ from one
another in numerous passages.

The following two excerpts are from The Jerome Biblical Commentary [2]:

DOUAY-RHEIMS (1582-1609). This was done by Gregory
Martin, an Oxford-trained scholar, working in the circle of
English Catholic exiles on the Continent, under the sponsorship
of William (later Cardinal) Allen. The NT appeared at Rheims in
1582; the OT at Douay in 1609. The translation, although
competent, exhibited a taste for Latinisms that was not uncommon
in English writing of the time but has seemed excessive in the
eyes of later generations. The NT influenced the AV.

CHALLONER REVISION (1749-63). The official Catholic
version underwent revision a century earlier than its
Protestant counterpart, the AV. Bishop Richard Challoner,
coadjutor to the Vicar Apostolic of the London district,
revised the NT in 1749 and 1752, and the OT in 1750 and
1763. This was a considerable revision, markedly modernizing
the style. For two centuries the Challoner revision remained in
almost universal use among English-speaking Catholics.

The Douay Rheims HTML Bible has been placed in the Public Domain, which means there is no copyright
(nor can there ever be one) on this
software. You are welcome to make copies and distribute this software freely, in accordance
with the protection afforded to you through our Licensing Agreement.

The HTML Bible has been created by:

johnhurt.com
PO Box 31 Elmwood, TN 38560, USA
Most Bibles viewed on the Internet are created by a Common Gateways Interface (CGI) program, and are not
very portable. A web server and must be installed to get them to run.

The HTML Bible consists of 1,189 "flat" HTML Web pages. It does not require a web server, and can operate on almost any platform.
All that is required is to have a Computer and a Browser, such as Netscape or Internet Explorer. The HTML
Bible can function as a collection of files located in a folder on your hard drive.

The HTML Bible was created by using Visual Basic 5.0 to convert and load public domain Bible texts to
an Access 97 database, where another VB program checked the data for accuracy. A third program then
converted the data from Access to 1,189 chapter text files and an index file with .htm extensions, with
the appropriate HTML tags inserted for presenting the data in a table format.
The VB program wrote the hyperlinks between each adjoining chapter and to and from the index page.

To increase access speed, each chapter of the Bible is presented as one HTML file. There are 1,189 chapter-files in the Internet Bible, plus an index, license, and About file. The chapter filenames are arranged as follows:

"B"

"B" stands for "Book". Files must begin with an alpha character.

"2 digit Book Number"

01 to 66. 01 is for Genesis, 66 for Revelation

"C"

"C" stands for Chapter

"3 digit Chapter Number"

001 to 150 for Psalms chapter 150.

".htm extension"

Files must have an .htm extension to be viewed by the browser.

For Genesis 1, the filename will be B01C001.htm. For Matthew 24, the filename will be B40C024.htm

The following is a list of Books, with the book number used in the numbering scheme, and maximum number of chapters:

Inside each Chapter, there is a further reference to the specific verse, which can be integrated with any other HTML document. For example, to link directly to Matthew 5:17, the following link is used:

The link to the verse in each chapter always begins with "V" and the verse number. A commentary converted to HTML can link to the appropriate verse in the Internet Bible, and allow the reader to view the verse in its context.